Dear <<First Name>>,
Welcoming our new PM
Well! What a month - let no-one tell you that politics is boring! Since I last wrote the UK has had an historic referendum result and in the aftermath, our second female Prime Minister. Theresa May has conducted the biggest reshuffle in recent years. Her main challenger, Andrea Leadsom, has gone to DEFRA. A number of big beasts are back. And she has created a major new department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy with some of the Conservative Party's brightest thinkers at the helm.
See below for our thoughts, what we've been reading this month, and some exciting stories from around the world. And don't hesitate to tell us what you think!
Sam
P.S. Don't forget to let me know if you are coming to Conservative Party Conference
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 "Conservatives believe in social order and security, and it is obvious that our continued reckless disregard for our planet endangers this...we want to recapture climate change from the pessimists. " David Cameron 2007
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David Cameron left Number 10 last week after 6 years as Prime Minister and 10 as leader of the Conservative Party. Amidst the inevitable ups and downs, he can genuinely claim to have led the 'greenest government ever.' Establishing the largest marine reserve in the world. Bringing through the Paris deal. Delivering natural capital accounting. Putting cost-effective decarbonisation front and centre. Promoting the tech and innovation that will meet the demands of the future. Crucially he reminded conservatives that care for the natural environment is inextricable from economic security and social justice, and is a moral responsibility on its own terms.
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Theresa May has arrived, bringing a burning passion for social justice and a wealth of experience. She was Shadow Secretary of State for Environment and Transport in 03/04. She spoke out on Biosecurity, CAP, Animal Welfare and Waste. With its reforms of Whitehall, the administration has shown it is committed to an industrial strategy. It will want this to empower local areas and deliver blue collar jobs - the Erdington Modernisation of May's joint chief of staff, Nick Timothy. It will be exciting to see her environmental vision promulgated over the coming months.
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 Greg Clark becomes Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He has said: " I am thrilled to have been appointed to lead this new department charged with delivering a comprehensive industrial strategy, leading government’s relationship with business, furthering our world-class science base, delivering affordable, clean energy and tackling climate change." The appointment marks his arrival into a department he part shadowed from 2008-2010 (see this profile in the Independent from then). He is joined by a stellar team in Margot James, Jo Johnson, Nick Hurd, Jesse Norman and Pauline Neville Rolfe, all of whom have worked on environmental policy. |
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Nick  Hurd, a former co-chairman of CEN has long been active in Conservative Environmentalism. In 2007 he wrote "The decarbonisation of any developed economy will require a transformation in the energy efficiency standards of the products we rely on, from the car to the kettle. To achieve this transformation, government must shake conservative industries out of their comfort zones by taking a more radical and simple approach to regulation."
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Philip Hammond becomes chancellor. As Foreign Secretary he gave a powerful speech to the American Enterprise Institute in the Autumn, on a conservative response to climate change. He said "I do not accept that we have to choose between our future prosperity and safeguarding the future of our planet. This is not a zero sum game. As conservatives, we choose both."
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 Amber Rudd moves to the Home Office, a great office of state. In the short time between the referendum and the new role, she made clear that safeguarding access to "safe, clean green spaces.. protecting our most precious species...ensuring our green and pleasant land is protected [has] been at the heart of Conservatism for centuries." (Read the full speech to the Business and Climate Summit here). |
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 Andrea Leadsom takes on DEFRA. She is a champion of evidence-based policy making. Many have jeered at her confession: "When I first came to this job one of my two questions was: 'Is climate change real?' and the other was 'Is hydraulic fracturing safe?' And on both of those questions I now am completely persuaded." But the approach shows an admirable humility and willingness to respond to facts. She was clear in her short-lived campaign that "Decarbonising our energy system is not some abstract regulatory requirement. It is an essential responsibility that we hold towards our children and grandchildren, as the only way to effectively counter the threat of climate change...However we choose to leave the EU, let me be clear: we remain committed to dealing with climate change.” |
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 Liam Fox becomes the minister for international trade. His excellent book Rising Tides ( buy it here for the summer, or read this interview in the Telegraph) is an astute catalogue of the challenges and opportunities facing the contemporary world. He writes "In the years ahead, our economic and security interests will be threatened by many more people, and if we are to minimise these risks, we have to be participants in the problem-solving. Isolationism is not going to be an option." |
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The list is not exhaustive - we look forward to profiling others in future
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Mrs Thatcher
‘We must enable all our economies to grow and develop because without growth you cannot generate the wealth required to pay for the protection of the environment.’
Speech to the Royal Society in 1990
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Boris Johnson
“I cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe, and always will be. There will still be intense and intensifying European cooperation and partnership in a huge number of fields: the arts, the sciences, the universities, and on improving the environment.”
June 2016, Daily Telegraph
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